Town council dedicates space for historical society

Tuesday

Nov 15, 2016 at 12:01 AMNov 16, 2016 at 6:02 PM

By Madison Wilson, Prosper Press

The Prosper Town Council signed a memorandum of understanding with the Prosper Historical Society to dedicate a spot at Frontier Park for a veterans memorial on Nov. 8 at the town council meeting. An MOU is a formal agreement between two or more parties and validates the understanding between the town and the historical society that space will be reserved for the memorial.

Historical society President Bill Hays said the memorial will help Prosper residents honor the country’s veterans every day of the year.

“We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the veterans who protected us,” Hays said. “We wouldn’t have a country. It’s a privilege for me to be able to honor all the veterans. … We don’t know what they really went through. It’s really a privilege to honor them because a lot of them didn’t make it back.”

The memorandum states that the historical society will be responsible for the day to day operations of the memorial, while Prosper staff will be responsible for the maintenance of the site and its surrounding area. The society commissioned a design for the memorial but does not yet have the funding to complete the project. Hays said that most of the annual dues collected from the society members — $10 per person or $25 per family — go toward funding for the memorial. The MOU includes a clause placing a five-year time limit on the completion of the memorial’s construction.

“The signing of this MOU during the week of Veterans Day is highly significant,” said Town Manager Harlan Jefferson in a press release. “We are extremely proud of the men and women who serve in the military, through peacetime and wartime, and joining hands with the Prosper Historical Society to create this lasting memorial to their service is highly appropriate.”

Prosper Mayor Ray Smith said that although the process of determining and agreeing on a place for the memorial took over a year, he believes the outcome will be worth the wait.

“Sometimes good things take time, and I think this is going to be something that Prosper will be remembered for … for years to come,” Smith said.

The historical society, founded in 2006, is a nonprofit organization that aims to preserve the history of Prosper. The group meets the second Tuesday of the month at the PISD administration building.